I’ve had a day out at Slimbridge with Betty, my step mother in law, and we are both bird watchers but not twitchers. Slimbridge is on the banks of the River Severn and is a magnificent spot. The Wildlife and Wetlands Trust has it’s place there and the main part of their facility is a rest home for all kinds of wetlands birds. More ducks and geese than you would ever normally see. It has a bit of the look of a theme park in the main area, which is careful fenced, in the main to keep out foxes who would have a field day in there.

Just outside this area is a walk down to the banks of the Severn, a large area to walk through mainly with reeds and grasses and this is naturally a good place to spot the elusive Reed Warbler or it’s brother Sedge. It’s not been my pleasure to spot these before although I’m told by Betty that they are not that uncommon. They are shy little beasts and although we did get a fleeting glance, they were too busy singing at below eye level in the reeds.

I was racking my brains to recall when I had last heard that song, then it came to me. “Are you sure it’s a Reed Warbler Betty”, I asked. “It could be a Sedge she said with utter confidence”. “I’m sorry to disappoint you”, I said, “I think it’s an HP Deskjet Printer which is just getting ready to print. I had one on my desk just this morning”.

My chum Richard has just had a stent fitted, and as he said to me, the ticker’s fine but the pipes are furred. So what sprang to mind to my visual mind was “Dyno Rod”. For those of you from the UK reading this who might be familiar with the brand, it’s not a laxative but a company specialising in drain clearance for furred-up pipes. There is folk tale that they used to have the punch line ” Satisfaction Guaranteed or your blockage back”, but I rather doubt it. Or perhaps the copywriter fell foul of the spellchecker. Again unlikely, as it was written well before the digital age.

I am forever falling foul of the spellchecker and when composing an email to a mutual chum, the spellchecker said that Richard was having the Diana Ross treatment. This sounds altogether better than the Rod version and would be fitting for a chap who is, after all, one of the Supremes.

I’m sure he’ll be back on the walking trail with me again very soon, with extra clean pipes.

I don’t normally post stuff about people but this one’s an exception. This one’s for Robin, who started off as a client and then became a chum.

Cartoonists need clients with a sense of humour, and a willingness to take bit of a risk. Robin commissioned me to do a series of cartoons many years ago when he was the marketing manager of a company that specialised in computer back up. Take a look around you today and see if you can find anything remotely engaging about computer back up! All a bit ‘corporate’ these days as if taking anything like this less than seriously risks the loss of belief in the product.

We had great fun collaborating on the campaign and to give Robin full credit he managed to persuade his colleague at the company that it was a good idea too. Either that or he just didn’t tell them what he was doing. Who will ever know?

We’ve worked together subsequently on various other campaign and ideas and it’s always been brilliant fun. Robin is an enthusiast in just about everything he does. His recent foray into folk music is no exception and he has approached it with his usual good humour and energy learning how to play a ‘squeeze box’ and singing powerful folk music with his colleagues in the Gloucester Diamonds.

What’s been before

What’s been before

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Is there something more that you need to know, then go ahead and get in touch. I try to respond politely to any enquiry. Unless it’s just silly, and then I’d be very happy to ignore it. Thanks for coming to my blog